frippery

== English == === Etymology === From French friperie, from Old French fripier (“to rub up and down, to wear into rags”). Compare fripper. === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /ˈfɹɪpəɹi/ === Noun === frippery (countable and uncountable, plural fripperies) Ostentation, as in fancy clothing. Useless things; trifles. 1892 April, Frederick Law Olmsted, Report by F.L.O., quoted in 2003, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 170: [Olmsted reiterated his insistence that in Chicago] simplicity and reserve will be practiced and petty effects and frippery avoided. (obsolete) Cast-off clothes. (obsolete) The trade or traffic in old clothes. (obsolete) The place where old clothes are sold. Hence: secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance. ==== Translations ==== === References === 1897 Universal Dictionary of the English Language, Robert Hunter and Charles Morris, eds., v 2 p 2213. [for entries 2, 3, 4, & 5]: Frippery (Page: 597) “frippery”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.